After a few warm up celebrations for my 50th. The Northern Fanatics [3 of us] convened to taste a line up of Syrah’s and Grenache based wines.
All wines were opened at 10:00am, tasted by me, and decanted at 4:00pm. Started wine tasting at 7:00pm.
My wife was in charge of pouring into the test decanter and bringing it downstairs for us. I wrote out the lineup for the other two winos. We always usually taste double blind.
Wine #1 Big nose of red fruit. Same on palate. Great finish. SINE QUA NON B20. One of the fanatics concede later he wanted to hate this wine, he wanted to find it OTT with a hot alcoholic finish. He found neither. Everybodies first SQN. 100% Syrah
Wine #2 I will be repeating this a lot. Big nose of red fruit. Moderately tannic grip, black fruits, smoke. Another great lip smacking finish. 2006 FIANCE. Years of life ahead of it. Very similar to one tasted in 2008. 50/50 Syrah Grenache
Wine #3 Smoke, coffee, black fruit nose. Smoke, coffee, black olives, black fruit. Sorry about the broken record, but, a great finish, with slight tannins. Young with years of life. 2007 Rasa QED.
94% Syrah 3% Grenache and 3% Mouvedre
Wine #4 Huge sweet nose of raspberry.Slight tannins, blast of red fruit. Longest finish of them all.Not at all what I remember tasting it with the Fiance in 2008. Back then it was real sweet and gooey. It has grown up since and also has years ahead of it. 2006 PURE. 100% Grenache
Wine #5 Wow what a nose. Smoke, coffee, tar, liquorice. All of these carried over to the palate with an olive component added. The most complex wine by far. Again a terrific finish. Wow wine for everybody. Less tannic than the QED. 2008 RASA PRINIPIA. 100% Syrah
Wine #6 It is too bad that my wife left this for last. I loved it, but the other two didn’t. Big ass brett nose. Intense palate of dried fruit and leather. Rioja like. Good solid finish. Still has tannins and more acidity than all of the other wines combined. 2001 CUVEE LAURENCE. Cndp blend I don’t know the cepage.
CONCLUSION
The Principia was the clear cut best wine for us, tied for second was the Pure and the B20, after that it is splitting hairs as the Fiance and the Qed are both awesome wines. I loved the Laurence but it stood out as lean in fruit in this lineup.
Buy more Rasa, and try to source Pure and Fiance at reasonable prices. I bought these by the 6 pack for 65.00 each. Know I see Pure at 230.00 retail, thanks Uncle Bob.
We have visited Rasa a couple of times and Pinto and Billo are great hosts who know what they are doing in such a short time as winemakers. I am hoping to visit Julien Barrot in May.
The boys batted 500, 3 for 6
I cheated by tasting them earlier and went 6 for 6